Gene Shock

[Gin Yatreg]

Chapter 1

Pardon Our Dust - Part 1

「One Year Earlier」

"Haaah, finally back here again."

A red-headed boy stood in front of the exit gate of Coruscant with a smile on his face. 

"If I hadn't seen that ad from Syntech, I'd have already done my visit for this part of the world." 

The boy shivered, thinking back to the events of the previous year. Asked to help investigate a place inside a pocket verse created by a man named Karl Jak, the boy and several others had crashed a plane onto an island filled with the supernatural. Over the course of several days, the boy and his companions had encountered ghosts, zombies, a crazed carny, a serial killer, and the ghoulish version of one of their teammates. Funnily enough, it was a vampire that was his only ally and friend for most of it. It was also this incident that had caused the boy to notice a pattern whenever Karl Jak was involved:

He was impaled a lot.

In fact, he had been impaled about three times now, all inside that pocket verse of Karl's creation. He had come to the conclusion that the verse itself was screwing with him, and that some cosmic entities got some sort of sick kick out of it all. 

"...Maaaybe I should look for some body armor while I'm here. Yes, definitely body armor. I wonder if they have Mithril in this universe..." 

The boy quickly went on his way, through the surprisingly in-depth scanning area, and down the steps of the entrance/exit area. 

"Hopefully Tonic doesn't get too stir crazy staying near the guard station," the boy thought, worried for the avian friend he had to leave behind. Evidently despite his race being created in a lab, Tonic was deemed too similar to creatures of magical universes, and was thus barred entrance due to a number of incidents involving the birds in the past. "Well, it's only for a few days. He'll be fine," the boy reassured himself. 

As he stepped onto the crowded sidewalk, he noticed a tourist stand with maps and brochures of the all the venues the city had to offer. He grabbed a map of the city and began to look it over. 

Don't worry, these things will get longer.